University of Virginia Library

Colloquium

Let's Revive Our
Honor System

By Bill Parks

I came to the University from
New England in 1965 with the aim
of getting my points of view
wrenched and with a morbid
curiosity about the workings of
bigotry. The Honor System then
seemed to be an unexpected but
welcome asset to an isolated community.
It has been with a great
deal of amusement, then, that I
have watched my fellow students
here stumble upon the "liberal"
vocabulary and toddle through
their insipid versions of the tactics
of recently martyred political activists.
Virginia is, of course, to be
congratulated on its new-found
open-mindedness.

In the midst of the growing
enthusiasm here for "Liberal" trappings,
however, the word "change"
has appeared on The Cavalier
Daily's pages with increasing frequency
and decreasing reference to
what is being changed. Currently,
this word "change" is being used
with frightening abandon in reference
to the Honor System. It seems
to me that even a "liberal"
community should be willing to
examine what is to be abandoned
for the sake of "change" before
suggesting any changes.

What I presently have is a
memory of unquestioned honor
among Virginia students. It feels
funny that memory inspires nostalgia.
That memory is, however, a
reminder that education into the
status quo used to work with
marvelous results. But now the
Virginia "liberals" tell us to suspect
the status quo no matter what.

If good policies and ideas must
be presented under the guise of
change to be acceptable here these
days, then I would like to offer
some changes in the Honor System:
let's try a system in which there is a
spirit which forbids lying, cheating
and stealing without exception
among all University students; a
system in which all students agree
to bend their "liberal" wills to it in
order to earn its benefits; a system
from which those too weak to
handle its stem are excluded. I, for
one, would welcome such a change.
I've even seen it work. But that was
before Virginia became so "liberal."